


Forgotten

by ncfan



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: First Age, Gen, Introspection, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7151735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faniel has a question she wants answered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Faniel is a character from early versions of the Silmarillion, where she was one of Indis and Finwë’s daughters. She was eventually cut from the Silmarillion.

Anar sank slowly in the west, setting the western reaches of the Pelóri to glow as though set ablaze—and indeed, Faniel had heard many of the Minyar claim that the lands west of the Pelóri must be set alight by Anar’s westward descent in the evening. Faniel didn’t know what to make of the story. Logically, Faniel knew that if such a thing were true, there would likely be more evidence of the fire—smoke rising over the mountains, for instance. But though she knew it wasn’t logical, Faniel still saw a certain appeal to the idea. Something about the idea of a vessel of destroyed Malinalda destroying everything it touched…

But to Faniel, Anar’s descent and the darkening sky did not immediately bring to mind fire. Instead, Faniel recalled instead the long night that had followed, after the first time the sky had gone dark. There could be no happiness derived from such an association.

Faniel sat on the porch of her mother’s house in Taniquetil, humming softly and twisting a lock of black hair on her finger. Findis had accepted an invitation to dine with the royal court, and likely wouldn’t be back for hours yet. Indis always took supper just after dark, close to the hour they had taken it in Tirion, when they still dined by Treelight. Indis never had guests at her table—so if Faniel wished to dine with friends of her own, she was dependent on their invitations—and rarely ate anywhere but at home.

Faniel had maybe half an hour before the appointed time, but she rose from the porch anyways, dusting off her yellow skirt, and traipsed back inside.

Her mother she found alone in the sitting room poring over a letter that someone (Faniel didn’t know who maybe Arafinwë or one of the Minyar who had stayed in Tirion even when their Noldorin spouses left) had sent her earlier today. Indis didn’t often receive letters, not even from Arafinwë, so Faniel peered over her shoulder curiously.

However, before Faniel could read a word, Indis spotted her. Smiling wryly, Indis laid the letter face-down on the table and motions for Faniel to sit on the low, wicker couch with her. “Are you very bored, daughter?”

Faniel shrugged, smoothing her skirt as she sat. “A bit,” she admitted.

“Well, supper will be served soon.” Indis’s smile softened. “We can talk until then, if you are bored.”

To that, Faniel could find no objection. “Alright, Mother. Who is that letter from?”

Indis laughed softly. “You _are_ curious about that, aren’t you? The letter is from Anairë.” She sighed slightly, her pale blue eyes glazing over. “She wrote to tell me that the palace gardens in Tirion are in full bloom.”

Faniel frowned. In the years she had spent living in Tirion, the flowers had never been a matter of great concern to her. Whether it was playing with Itarillë, attending to her lessons or wondering at the fact that her father dwelled so far away, and would not come to see her, Faniel had never paid much mind to the flowers in the palace gardens. And her mother spoke of Tirion so rarely… “Do you miss it?” Faniel asked quietly, running her fingernails slowly over the wicker. “Do you miss living in Tirion?”

Not the easiest question to answer, it seemed. Indis grimaced and straightened her shoulders, until they were indeed so straight that Faniel thought she could have laid a small plate on each, and neither would fall off. “…I miss parts of it.” The words came out as a soft croak, cracking at ‘parts.’ “Those whom I hold dear who were there.” Indis ran her fingernails over the embroidery on her skirt. “I miss them. But no, Faniel,” she went on, with a brittle smile, “by the end, I would not say that I missed it at all.”

From what Faniel remembered of Tirion during the last years of the Unrest, she could not say that she missed it, either. It had not exactly been pleasant to live in a city where everyone was constantly at someone else’s throat over something or another. Faniel nodded, and watching her mother closely, asked, “And my father? What of him?”

But Indis only answered her the same way she always did.  “I will tell you about your father another time, Faniel.”

-0-0-0-

Taniquetil was a city of chimes and bells. You’ll find them everywhere, ringing in towers and squares, held in the hands of passersby who rang them enthusiastically as they walked, dangling from the eaves of houses and the branches of trees. Their music was heard at all hours of the day and night, whenever even the slightest breeze blew through the city—high and low, sweet contrasted with discordant, almost sour tones. Taniquetil was rarely silent.

Faniel sat beneath a tulip tree in the courtyard of one of her friend’s, Calalírien’s house. With her were Calalírien and her cousins, and some other friends of theirs, Airandur and Isilmírë. They sheltered from the heat under the shade of the tulip tree while Airandur fanned himself and one of Calalírien's young cousins tapped her fingernails against one of the bells hung up in the tree, producing a hollow ring. The heat was all but suffocating, without a breeze to ease it; the only thing that made it bearable was how dry the air was.

“So, how was your trip to Tirion?” Calalírien asked Isilmírë, eyebrows raised. Faniel and Airandur turned their attention on Isilmírë in full, curiosity piqued. Isilmírë had spent the last month in Tirion, visiting her paternal grandparents, who had stayed in Aman even when their son left it and his pregnant wife behind him.

Isilmírë hugged her knees, her pale hair falling like a curtain over her face. “It’s very… empty,” she murmured. “Very empty, and very quiet. It’s like living in one of those miniature cities in the Bellflower Square, but large enough to house real Quendi. It’s so hard to sleep at night without being able to hear any bells. My grandparents didn’t want me to go, but I was relieved when Mother sent for me,” she confessed, brows furrowed.

Airandur grimaced. “I remember it being that way the last time I was there.”

“Me as well,” Calalírien agreed.

Faniel said nothing, just listened as a low-pitched bell tolled far off in one of the towers, to signal the hour. She had not been to Tirion since she had left with her mother and oldest sister. She could not imagine it as empty and quiet, as they saw it so clearly. Say what you would of Tirion (and Faniel could say quite a bit), but it had never been particularly quiet. Or empty.

But though she had not been to Tirion in years, Faniel was bound to it as surely as her friends were, for none of them were likely to forget their Noldorin parent, regardless of the fact that they were Exiles in the eyes of the Valar, doomed never to return—or dead, in Faniel’s case, and doomed to never again walk on mortal soil. Isilmírë was the only one of them who wasn’t reminded of her Noldorin ancestry every time she gazed into a mirror—even Faniel, who otherwise bore her mother a far greater resemblance than she did her father, could not claim her black hair came from Indis.

“But it was nice to see your grandparents again, wasn’t it?” Faniel probed, leaning over and prodding Isilmírë’s shoulder.

“I suppose so,” Isilmírë replied noncommittally. “Really, though, I like it far better here. There are no bells in the city, and no joy in that house.” She frowned, wringing the end of her blue stole in her hand. “And if they want to see me so badly, I don’t understand why they don’t come here.”

Faniel couldn’t dispute her. She had wondered much the same thing, though the exact line of her thoughts had gone _‘Why won’t he see me at all?’_

Airandur sprang to his feet, suggesting they go visit one of the public fountains, since the water would cool them off. Faniel agreed, as did her friends and Calalírien’s cousins. It would not take her mind off of these troubling things, not really, but there were so many half-Noldorin Minyar living in Taniquetil now that no one would even look twice at her, even if she was the king’s niece. She was just another dark-haired child in the city of bells, left with one parent, and bereft of the other.

-0-0-0-

No one ever had any news of the Exiles in Endóre, not even Ingwë, who consulted often with Manwë and Varda. The silence was disturbing, even if Faniel herself knew that her family across the city had no way of contacting her, nor she them. That she could not speak with them, could know nothing about what they had found in Endóre or how they were faring against Moringotto, only made their decision to leave all the more difficult to comprehend.

Findis called them fools to go without the blessing of the Valar, and she said, jaw tightening, that the Kinslaying had damned them beyond any hope of return, or even of victory. _“The Doomsman has cursed them all, not just them but all of their descendants as well, to the breaking of the World. The Doomsman’s heart is as carven stone. All the suffering in the world could not move him to pity, once he has resolved to harden his heart._ ”

Ingwë said much the same, though perhaps out of concern for Faniel’s years, he had given not quite the same explanation as his oldest niece. The Quendi were bid by the Valar to live in Aman. Those who refused rendered themselves inferior with their refusal, while those who agreed were made better by the decision. How could anyone whose cause was just defy the Valar, and refuse Aman?

This was the same verdict handed down by Faniel’s Minyarin cousins, with Élelindë and Ingil being the most vehement. Indis, by contrast, refused to say anything at all on the subject, except that conviction sometimes overcame wisdom.

Faniel thought she could understand Arafinwë—after all, he had come back and atoned. But the rest of her family, Nolofinwë and Lalwen and Fëanáro, and all of her siblings’ children, she could not understand them at all. Why leave the safety of Aman? Risking everything for revenge, giving up their homes and the Blessed Realm itself, Faniel could not fathom that, could not see any sense in it.

Perhaps if she had known Fëanáro better, Faniel might have understood. After all, it was he who drove the better part of the Noldor, including his family (even the half-siblings he despised), to rebel against the Valar and leave Aman. But Faniel had been born during Fëanáro’s banishment to Formenos. She had met her half-brother but once, when their father’s body was burned.

He had not looked at her, though she had eyed him with a sort of horrified curiosity. Faniel had seen a tall nér with his black hair cut brutally short above his shoulders, his face as hewn marble and his eyes reflecting the firelight so perfectly that Faniel could discern no emotion in them at all. He did not speak with Indis, would not even approach the side of the room on which she stood, so Faniel did not speak with him.

This had also been the first time Faniel had ever laid eyes on her father, though she had not seen him, not really. What she had seen was the form of a Quendë wrapped in white cloth, set ablaze and burning quickly. Perhaps if Faniel had known Finwë better, she would have understood, but she didn’t, and she couldn’t understand why her family would give up everything they had known for revenge. She couldn’t even understand the deep grief expressed by her family, when it was expressed for someone she’d never known (Even if she had wanted to know him).

-0-0-0-

“Findis?”

Findis usually allowed Faniel to accompany on her trips into Taniquetil’s many markets, though Faniel would be lying if she said they ever discussed much when they were out and about. If Findis saw no pressing need for conversation, she simply did not talk, and rarely did she have anything urgent to relate to Faniel. If ever they spoke, it was typically Faniel who spoke first.

Findis looked back and down at Faniel, her gauzy green stole, so out of place with her otherwise Noldorin dress, glittering in the sunlight. “Yes, Faniel?”

Faniel paused, suddenly self-conscious. They were in the middle of a crowded street, and she wasn’t sure who was listening, and who would judge her sister’s answers. _No, I’ll ask her. She’s more likely to answer than Mother is_. “I… I was wondering if you would tell me something about Father.”

Looking her over with a sweeping glance, Findis narrowed her dark eyes. “What was it you wanted to know?” Though nearly imperceptible, Faniel detected an edge to her voice.

No matter. She was committed to it, now. Faniel met her sister’s gaze squarely and asked determinedly, “Why was it that Father would never come to see me?”

Truthfully, Faniel had not expected a pleasant answer. It didn’t seem that there _could_ be a pleasant answer to such a question. But she had expected Findis to answer right away. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut, her lips parting to reveal gritted teeth. Then, Findis waved Faniel off of the cobblestone street, pointing her towards a stone bench shaded by young maple trees.

“You know of the reason for Fëanáro’s banishment, do you not?” It was barely a question, but still did Findis inquire after they had sat down.

Faniel restrained a shudder, and nodded. That Fëanáro had held a sword to Nolofinwë’s throat had ensured that she would never have much eagerness to meet him or know about him. Their father, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.

“When Fëanáro was banished from Tirion, Father chose to consider himself banished as well.” Findis’s eyes flashed. “He held himself dethroned, and refused to return to Tirion and be a king to his people until Fëanáro’s term of banishment had expired. He felt it only…” There was a long, pregnant pause. “…Fair.”

“And you don’t agree.”

Findis’s mouth contorted in a bitter smile. “Is it fair to side with the son who threatened to kill his brother, over the son who was threatened?”

Faniel had no answer for that.

“To answer your question, Faniel, Mother never sent you to Formenos because she feared for your safety there. She wrote to Father, begging him to return to Tirion to see you, but he never replied. He would not return, not for Mother, not for me or any of our siblings or their children, and not for you. Even in Formenos, he hid his face from everyone, save Fëanáro and his children.” Findis said it all so matter-of-factly, her voice drier than sand, but her black hair crackled.

“He…” Faniel’s stomach churned. She looked away from her sister, clutching her skirt in her hands. “…That’s why?” she asked in a small voice.

“He chose Fëanáro,” Findis replied wearily, “and it cost him everything.” Faniel felt her sister’s hand light on her shoulder. “But you still have us.”

Faniel nodded, and said nothing. The heat pressed too hard upon her for her to speak.

-0-0-0-

That night, when Faniel thought about it, she found for the first time that she was glad that no one had ever invited her to Tirion, and that her mother had never encouraged her to go. She liked it much better here. This was a place the shadow over her Noldorin family had never touched. It was the only place.

(There were questions she would ask her father, if he was still here, questions whose answers only he could know, but she was not sure he would have answered them. She’d not find them in the place where he had lived.)

**Author's Note:**

> Arafinwë—Finarfin  
> Itarillë—Idril  
> Moringotto—Morgoth  
> Nolofinwë—Fingolfin  
> Fëanáro—Fëanor
> 
>  **Anar** —The Sun (Quenya); called ‘Anar the Fire-Golden’ in a name originally given to it by the Vanyar, but eventually came into use by the rest of the Amanyar as well. Of the Sun and the Moon, it is the younger f the two vessels, lit by Laurelin’s last fruit  
>  **Minyar** —‘Firsts’, the first clan of the Elves of Cuiviénen, who were named for Imin and Iminyë, the former of whom was the first Elf to awaken. The Noldor called them ‘Vanyar’, ‘Fair ones’ (rendered in Primitive Quendian as ‘wanjā’, and rendered in Telerin as ‘Vaniai’), due to the nearly-universal trait of fair hair among the clan, but even in Aman, they still often referred to themselves as ‘Minyar.’ (Singular: Minya) (Adjectival form: Minyarin)  
>  **Malinalda** —'Tree of Gold'; a name of Laurelin, the younger of the Two Trees of Valinor; a name I envision to be one of its older titles, and thus still commonly used by the Vanyar  
>  **Quendi** —literally ‘the Speakers’; Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)  
>  **Endóre** —Middle-Earth (Quenya)  
>  **Nér** —man (plural: neri)


End file.
